Metal Army
by mpcp13
Summary: CH. 6 UP. When an alien vessel full of combat robots is found in Antarctica, Dr. Wakeman & Jenny are called to the scene. But a certain robotic queen also has her eyes on this particular prize. Reviews appreciated,constructive critiscism welcomed
1. Prologue

Author's Note: Yup, it's me again. I wasn't planning on writing any new fan fics for a while, but I got this idea in my head for a MLAATR fic and it just won't leave me alone until I got it down on paper.

Anyway, This fic is not related to my other MLAATR fan fic and has a slight crossover with Star Wars, though no main SW characters are gonna be featured and the Clone Wars-era SW universe itself will only make an appearance in the prologue. I won't give away any more of the plot and you'll have to read it yourself to find out.

Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.

Story Title: Metal Army

Chapter Title: Prologue

**Classified location, a galaxy far, far away**

A shuttle rose silently from the surface of the planet. Its thrusters glowing a bright red as it sped toward the lone Trade Federation vessel in orbit. On board were two Neimoidians. One, clearly the pilot, wore a bored, almost discontent look, on his bony face as he wheeled the shuttle toward the orbiting transport ship. The other was a passenger who wore an unremarkably drab gray tunic and nervously darted his eyes back to the rear of the shuttle every few seconds. The pilot saw this and chuckled.

"Relax," he said almost cheerfully. "We'll have you and your cargo on that ship in a moment."

The passenger said nothing and merely nodded jerkily. The pilot rolled his eyes. _These scientists are always so vaping nervous. Even seeing a mynock will probably scare 'em half to death._

In short order, the shuttle reached the orbiting transport ship. A hangar door opened on the Trade Federation starship and the shuttle pilot turned toward it. He settled the shuttle down gently on the hangar and locked the landing gear. He turned to face the passenger but was surprised to see the he was gone. The instant the shuttle landed the passenger had literally jumped out of the chair and disembarked from the shuttle.

The shuttle pilot blinked. "I didn't think anyone could move that fast."

Outside the shuttle, the scientist watched nervously as a cargo-handling droid off loaded the shuttle's cargo. As the cargo-handling droid emerged from the back of the shuttle it was seen carrying a sort of large crate that was large enough for six people to fit inside. The scientist followed it anxiously, jabbering something to the droid about being careful. The droid merely moved on as if it hadn't hear the scientist and put down the crate a bit to roughly.

Sure enough, the scientist gave the droid a verbal lashing. But the droid was designed with limited interface capabilities and didn't respond to the scientist. It merely moved back to its designated storage area and went to standby mode. This fact, however, did not stop the scientist from lecturing the now motionless robot on how important the cargo was and how it should've been more careful.

As the Neimoidian scientist scolded the cargo-handling droid, two spindly battle droids walked up to him. They stopped and seemed to exchange a confused glance on seeing the scientist cursing at the cargo-handling droid which was on standby. They shrugged and turned toward the scientist. The one with red command markings spoke up.

"Excuse me, Puule Gaarko," the battle droid said, startling the scientist. "Your presence is requested on the bridge at once."

The Neimoidian merely gave the two battle droids a contemptuous sneer before making his way toward the bridge, muttering something about annoying droids. But as he walked by and saw the several battle droids on the ship he had to admit to himself that it did give him a feeling of pride. After all, it was he and his team of fellow scientists in the Baktoid Armor Workshop who had developed the latest upgrades and droids that would make the Trade Federation's droid army a force to be reckoned with in the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

It had been only months ago that the Battle of Geonosis had proven the worth of the super battle droids and the upgrades that allowed the droids to operate without the need for a signal from a control ship. And soon his latest battle droid designs, locked away in the crate that had come with him on the shuttle, would make even the super battle droid pale in comparison. Not even the Jedi Knights would be able to stand up to it.

Finally, he reached the bridge of the ship and was greeted by its Neimoidian captain. "Greetings Puule Gaarko, I trust your trip up here was a pleasant one."

The scientist's lips curled in irritation as a few chuckles were heard throughout the bridge, more than a few of his fellow Neimoidians knew of his aversion to flying. "It was fine."

"Good for you," the captain said. "Now if I am allowed to know, what's so important about these battle droid schematics you're bringing along with you that you couldn't just transmit them via long-range communications?"

"Well," Puule Gaarko said. "Since they'll probably be out in the frontlines soon, I guess I can show you."

The scientist pulled out a small holoprojector from his pocket and activated it. The device projected a small image of what looked like a super battle droid at first. But on closer inspection differences in the design became apparent. The body was slightly thinner and the arms and legs were longer and ended in sharp, blade-like claws.

"I give you the ultra battle droid." Puule Gaarko said proudly. "With this droid we will destroy the Jedi and consequently, the Republic!'

The captain looked at the holographic schematic, unimpressed. "Seen one battle droid, you've seen 'em all. Besides, I doubt you can design any droid that can beat a Jedi by itself."

Puule just smiled. "But this droid has a few things most battle druids don't have. You see, many of this droid's parts were first tested on the droid body of General Grievous."

The captain's eyes bulged. He knew of the droid-bodies General's exploits, and of the lightsabers of the Jedi he had felled which he wore around his waist like trophies. And if this new droid was built with parts based on the designs used on General Grievous then the Jedi would probably stop at nothing to keep them from production if they ever found out. That certainly explained why the plans had to be hand delivered and not transmitted over the comm channels.

"Hm," the captains said, looking on the schematics with a new found respect. "From the sound of it this battle droid would be quite formidable indeed."

"Yes," Puule said. "In fact, we already tested them. I've loaded the four droids which we built for testing on this ship in case the Viceroy would like a demonstration. Though I think it wouldn't be necessary."

The captain merely nodded. He turned to the bridge crew, gave them hyperspace coordinates, and ordered a hyperspace jump. "If that is so, then we'd better get these plans to the droid factories as fast as possible."

The stars faded into lines as the ship went into hyperspace. The scientist found a place to sit down and peered out the view ports at the strange, almost psychedelic background that was hyperspace. While he was afraid of flying from the surface of the planet to space, he did like hyperspace travel. The strange play of light and purple hues characteristic of a hyperjump actually had a sort of calming effect on him.

Suddenly, the seeming calm of hyperspace was shattered when the ship was suddenly yanked from hyperspace. The scientist, the captain, and most of the bridge crew struggled for balanced and yelped in surprised confusion.

"What's going on?" demanded Puule in alarm.

"Something yanked us out of hyperspace!" replied the captain. "I don't know what, there should not have been any natural gravity wells that could have done so in the course I set."

"Is this a Republic ambush?!" the scientist croaked, his voice rising in alarm.

"But I am not detecting any other ships—" the captain started to say. The captain fell silent and his eyes bulged in amazement and horror at what he saw outside the view ports. Following the captain's gaze, Puule Gaarko looked out as well. He felt his insides turn cold at the sight that greeted him. It was a swirling vortex that bore a striking resemblance to a black hole. And before anyone could react, it sucked the ship in…

The ship rumbled violently and sounds of bulkheads being ripped apart resonated through out the vessels. Puule Gaarko cringed on the floor, dreading his imminent death. He should've entered the black hole now. In fact, he could've sworn that he felt the gravity tearing him apart by the molecules. He heard a whimper beside him and— _Wait!_ His mind screamed, _If I'm in a black hole then how come I can hear sounds? How come I can even think?!_

He looked up and, to his relief, he found that the vortex had been replaced by a blue planet with swirling white clouds. To his side the captain, whom he had heard whimpering earlier, slowly stood up with a confused look on his face. "Wha-? What happened? I thought nothing could survive a black hole. For that matter, where is the black hole?"

"Apparently, captain, that was no black hole." Puule Gaarko. "There are theories that there are large naturally occurring wormholes that could lead to other points in the galaxy, that was probably one of those. It might have thrown us off course, but it would simply be a problem of finding out where we are and correcting the coordinates. A setback, to be sure, but at least we are not dead."

"Don't be so sure," the captain said, less than ecstatic. "Wherever we are that 'wormhole' of yours threw us too close to the planet and damaged our thrusters. I don't know if we can pull out of its gravity!"

The relieved expression quickly disappeared from the Neimoidian scientist's face as the transport ship fell toward the blue planet, gaining speed as the planet's gravity became stronger and stronger. The ship's crew fought to get the ship out of it's fatal fall, but with the damaged thrusters it was futile. But the crew did manage to keep the ship with upright, hoping that they would be able to survive if they managed to crash land the vessel in such a way that it would skid along on it's belly.

Puule managed to catch a look outside the view port. His mind barely had time to register the snowy environment he saw outside before the ship slammed violently into the ground. The shock threw him face-first into a control panel and everything went dark…

**Year 2074, Antarctica, planet Earth**

**(About 1000 years later)**

From his warm, comfortable command center, a foreman lazily tucked his feet up on the control panels and settled a mug of hot chocolate on his armrest's cup holder. He leaned forward slightly and clicked a button on the control panel. He was immediately greeted by the droning, synthesized voice of an industrial drilling robot.

"DR–4098 reporting." The robot greeted monotonously.

"Take your drilling team and drill down about 500 meters on these coordinates." The foreman said idly as he transported the coordinates to the industrial drilling robots.

"At once, sir." DR-4098 answered automatically. Immediately it an four other DR-type robots immediately went to work, drilling into the Antarctic ice with powerful focus-lasers.

Back at the command center, the foreman leaned back on his chair and picked up a Johnny Zoom comic book. He chuckled slightly as he muttered to himself: "And my dad wanted me to go to this line of work so that I'd learn the value of hard work. Heh heh, yeah, this is _really_ arduous work."

He continued to read his comic book and sip his warm chocolate as the drilling robots slowly mode their way down the Antarctic snow. A few hours later, the foreman fell asleep, his face covered with the comic book as he snored loudly. Suddenly, a loud beeping sounded from his console. The foreman jerked awake and threw the comic book off his face. He muttered grumpily as he looked at the console, it was an incoming call alert.

"Yeah, what is it?" he growled crankily.

"We have encountered an obstruction an obstruction and cannot proceed." Droned DR-4098.

"What do you mean you can't proceed?" the foreman demanded. "You have focus-laser drills and they can drill through anything. Now continue drilling and wake me up when you're done."

"Our focus-lasers cannot penetrate the obstruction, I would not have woken you up had it been otherwise." The robot's maddeningly calm voice answered.

"Stupid robot…" the foreman muttered under his breath. "Can you give me a visual of the obstruction?"

"Affirmative." The robot sent a live feed via the uplink as the foreman rubbed the circles under his eyes. He took a look at the screen and immediately frowned. On the screen was an image of a smooth, dull gray object. Upon closer inspection, it was clearly too regular to be a natural mineral deposit. Though, from the fact that the robot stated that it could not drill into it with focus lasers should've given that away.

The foreman's frown deepened as he clicked the comm button. "Dr-4097? Can you do a composition scan of the obstruction?"

"Sir, my designation is DR-4098." The industrial robot pointed out.

"I don't care!" the foreman yelled testily. "Just give me a composition scan, now!"

"Affirmative." The robot replied, proceeding with the scan as the foreman muttered something about stupid robots. After a few moments, the robot was finished. "Sir, the composition of this obstruction is unknown."

The foreman swallowed a lump from his throat. Either he just discovered a new metal, or something else. And from all the horror and sci-fi movies he read, he knew that a person who discovered something unknown always got whacked by some sort of creature or alien… He shook his head, knowing that he was being silly.

"4098, can you and your fellow robots do further scans. Try and figure out how much of this stuff there is, maybe?"

"Yes, sir"

"And could you put up a real time output feedback via the uplink?"

"Affirmative."

The foreman leaned intently toward the displays as the robots proceeded with their scans. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as second by second the numbers on the mass volume counter increased to exponential proportions. He shot a look at the digital image the robots were trying to produce from their scans and saw that it was starting to take shape.

Minutes later, the robots completed their scans. The foreman's jaw dropped as he saw the shape of the digital image before him. It seemed to be a donut-like shape with a sphere in the middle. And he could almost make out things that looked like rocket boosters on one end, clearly this was no mineral deposit. He gulped, his throat had suddenly gone very, very dry. His hands trembled as he reached toward the satellite phone.

"H-hello? C-could you connect me t-to the United Nations Extraterrestrial Response Unit?"

Author's Note: Well, that's it for the prologue. I know it's not that clear yet but I promise to make it clearer as the fic proceeds. If you're wondering where I got the year from in the second half of the chapter in was from Coyoteloon's fic, _Whack to the Future_.

Anyway, please tell me what you think and please review. I'll try to get the next chapter up soon.


	2. The Discovery

Author's Note: Thanks to Deadeye1 and Coyoteloon for commenting on the prologue, it means a lot to me knowing that people support my writing. Anyway, on with the fic. I'm gonna recycle the Stealth Wasp concept and other such concepts from my other MLAATR fic in this and later chapters.

Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.

Story Title: Metal Army

Chapter Title: The Discovery

**Wakeman residence, Tremorton**

A bead of sweat trickled down Dr. Nora Wakeman's brow as she carefully made adjustments to a device that seemed to be some sort of weapon. She took a wrench off her worktable and slowly tightened a valve in the device. The doctor was so engrossed in the task that she didn't notice the single bead of sweat until it struck her right eye. She blinked in irritation and her hand reflexively jerked as if to wipe the sweat out of her eye, the very same hand that held the wrench.

The sudden yank of her hand caused the valve to bend and rupture. The result was instantaneous. She was vaguely aware of a bright flash, a loud boom, and the sensation of being thrown backwards. The next thing she knew she was that she had her back to a wall, covered in soot, and her white hair singed. She sat there for a moment, stunned, before she wiped the soot of her thick, red glasses. She shook her head to clear it then stared at the spot she head been only seconds ago.

In place of her worktable was a crater that was surrounded by scorch-marks. Immediately next to that was shattered window with cracked and blackened shards of gas clinging to the frames. She picked herself up and staggered toward the broken window. She looked out of it and, sure enough, saw the burnt and twisted remains of the device she had been working on lying out on her front yard.

She sighed. "Looks like the plasma-thrower needs a tad more work."

She dusted off most of the soot clinging to her before she grabbed a pair of heat-resistant gloves and proceeded out to the yard. She muttered under her breath as she carefully picked up the still hot weapon. As she started back to her house, her left foot caught on a stone causing her to trip. The weapon flew out of her hands and landed on a birdbath, boiling the water and scaring away two birds who had been drinking off it.

Dr. Wakeman cursed as she blindly searched around the ground for her glasses. Just as her hand brushed against her glasses she heard the distinct sound of a vehicle stopping in front of her yard. She turned around, still without glasses, and saw a white blur about the size of a van. She saw what had to be a doors opening and saw two human-shaped blurs of white climbing out of them. At the sight, her expression soured.

"Oh no," she said, frustrated. "Not the Mental Hospital again."

"Are you Dr. Nora Wakeman?" one of the men in white asked.

"Now see here," Dr. Wakeman said indignantly as she put her glasses back on. "Just because people refer to me as a 'mad scientist' does not mean I am mentally unsta—"

She stopped in mid-sentence as her vision came back to focus. While the two men were dressed in white, their clothes were clearly military fatigues and not the usual coveralls of an asylum's attendants. Also, the men were wearing military-style blue berets on their heads and had armbands with the letters "UN" printed in blue. She shot a look at the vehicle and saw that it was a blocky, white, armored jeep also marked with "UN" on the doors. The doctor turned to looked back at the soldiers with a sheepish expression on her face.

"Heh heh, my apologies," she said. "I thought you were… um… someone else."

The soldiers' expressions were blank. One of them stepped forward. "Dr. Wakeman, I am Captain James Burke of the United Nations Extraterrestrial Response Unit. I'd like you to come with us, please."

"Extraterrestrial Response Unit?" Nora frowned. "What's going on, is it the Cluster? Or maybe another space biker rampage? I could call XJ-9 to handle any problems with the Cluster or space bik—"

"It's not the Cluster, ma'am. Nor is it space bikers" Replied Ct. Burke.

"Not either of them?" the doctor was surprised, usually any extraterrestrial problems the Earth had were from either rowdy space bikers or the considerably more dangerous Cluster. There were those very predictable Menusians, but they weren't scheduled to invade anytime soon.

"I am not at liberty to say what exactly is going on, Dr. Wakeman," the captain said. "All I was ordered to do was to find you and the Global Robotic Response Unit and bring you along with us. Speaking of which, where is the Global Robotic Response Unit?"

"I'm not sure where she is, but I can call her."

"Very well."

The doctor quickly walked back to her house and made her way towards XJ-9's communications monitor link. Whatever extraterrestrial situation was afoot, it had to be significant to warrant a house call from the UNERU. She reached toward the communications monitor and flipped it on.

**Somewhere in the South Atlantic Ocean, a few hours later**

"I still don't see why I have to come along." Jenny griped for the umpteenth time as she stared glumly out the jet chopper's window.

"XJ-9," Dr. Wakeman sighed in exasperation. "A call from the UNERU is not something I can just excuse you from because you'd rather waste your time at some silly mall."

"But Mooom, I am seriously missing some quality mall-hopping because of this! If you wanted me to take care of some aliens I could have just flown there and kicked the snot out of them in a few minutes and then spend the rest of the day doing what I want to do." The teenage robot complained. "Instead I'm being dragged along on some stupid, time-consuming military thing."

"XJ-9 have you considered that the reason I didn't send you out to 'kick the snot out of some aliens' is because this mission might involve something other than doing so?"

"If it involves something other than that then it shouldn't involve me!"

"Teenagers…" Mrs. Wakeman grumbled. In the front of the chopper jet, the pilots exchanged amused, knowing looks. Beside Jenny and the doctor, were Ct. Burke and his men. Though if the had reaction to the two's conversation they were keeping them hidden behind blank, dispassionate faces.

Jenny, in the meantime, had stopped complaining and instead watched sulkily out the jet chopper's windows. The sulky expression quickly changed into one of grudging awe as Jenny caught sight of the quarter-mile long aircraft carrieand it's accompanying battle group.Though Jenny had seen and fought many alien vessels and machines far more sophisticated than all the ships in the battle group combined, a quarter-mile long warship was nothing to take lightly.

She saw more and more of the aircraft carrier as the jet chopper slowly came in to land. She saw the color-coded flight deck crew bustling between fighter craft and jet choppers arrayed on the flight deck. As they came closer and closer, Jenny saw that the jet choppers she had seen were not in the dull gray shade of Navy aircraft but a dirty white. Her eye lenses zoomed in and managed to make out the letters "UN" on the sides of the craft. Some of them seemed to have just landed and she saw some people in civilian clothes along with the UNERU people who were wearing white BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms).

_Looks like me and Mom weren't the only ones who were called up. _Jenny thought as the swivel jets of the jet chopper reoriented to a vertical position and landed on the carrier deck with a slight bump. Immediately she, Dr. Wakeman, and the soldiers unbuckled themselves and made their way toward the rear of the jet chopper.

The jet chopper's rear door opened and Ct. Burke and his men instantly poured out of the vehicle, not even bothering to wait for the other two passengers. Jenny and her mother followed suit and were met by a twenty-ish man in Navy khakis.

"Welcome to the USS _Renzetti._" The sailor greeted, yelling over the sound of the jet chopper's engines. "I'm Petty Officer Robert Carr, your guide. Will you follow me, please?"

"What, exactly, is going on here?" Jenny asked as she and Mrs. Wakeman followed Robert.

"I really can't say, robot." Replied the petty officer. "And frankly, I don't really know. We were just assigned under UNERU several hours ago."

"The name's Jenny." The blue robot said, peeved that someone had referred to her as 'robot' like she was just a thing.

If Petty Officer Carr heard the remark, he didn't show any sign of it. He just kept on walking towards the access ways to the lower part of the carrier. In the background, the roar of jet engines announced the arrival of yet another jet chopper. Jenny turned to the new jet chopper and saw soldiers and a disheveled looking man in civilian clothes.

_Geeze, this sure is a lot of hubbub. Maybe this really is serious…_ Jenny thought, frowning.

"Where are you taking us?" she asked.

"Down to the briefing room. Now, come on, we better hurry."

Jenny wanted to push for more information, but a look from her mother discouraged her from doing so. They just kept following the sailor, both wondering what all this was really about.

**Cluster Stealth Wasp, altitude: 500 ft. above sea level**

"I don't like this," a red roach drone said to his partner inside the cockpit of a cloaked, wasp-like recon craft. "There's too much firepower here. I mean, sure, they're primitive, but there are a whole lot of 'em."

"Yeah, me too." agreed his partner, a green roach drone. "But Queen Vexus ordered us to keep tabs on XJ-9, and I'd rather take my chances here that disobey the Queen's orders."

"You got a point there." The red drone agreed. He remembered all too well the last robot that had the gall to disobey the Queen. He had ended up melted down and turned into rivets. The drone cringed, that was not a way he wanted to go. Compared to that, the possibility of being shot down by humans seemed almost palatable.

He turned backed to the monitors and zoomed in the camera. XJ-9 and her human creator seemed to be following a human military drone. _Oh, wait, _thought the red drone. _Do humans call their soldiers "drones"? _The drone shook his head. Such thoughts were irrelevant.

"Could you zoom in on one of the white-uniformed human soldiers?" came the green drone's voice, snapping the red drone out of his thoughts.

"Why? We're supposed to be monitoring XJ-9."

"I know, but there's something familiar about those soldiers."

"You've seen one human you seen 'em all." The red drone remarked. Nevertheless, he moved the camera away from XJ-9 and zoomed it into one human soldier.

"Okay," the green drone said. "Now zoom in to the emblem of that blue thing he's wearing."

"You mean the beret?"

"I don't care what it's called! Just zoom in!"

The image blurred as the lens refocused. But as the image cleared, both drones saw a symbol of what looked like a wire frame representation of Earth with "UN" in the middle. Around it were the words "Extraterrestrial Response Unit".

"I knew it!" the green roach drone exclaimed. "I knew they were UNERU troopers. I saw 'em once when we raided a primitive human starship."

"Oh yeah, I remember that raid." The red drone smiled. "One of the UNERU guys we captured later ended up as the star attraction of the Ringing Brothers' Human Circus."

Then the red drone's expression became serious. "But aren't UNERU responsible for responding to threats from outside Earth? Namely, threats like us?"

"Yeah, and XJ-9 plus those guys cannot be good news. We'd better send a fly probe to find out what all this is about."

"Got it covered." The green drone said as he pressed a button from the Stealth Wasp's control panel. A small panel opened on the bottom of the cloaked vessel and a tiny, fly-like robot flew out of it and sped towards the USS _Renzetti._

**Briefing Room, USS _Renzetti_**

There was a slight murmur in the briefing room as the gaggle of scientists from around the world seated within talked amongst themselves. Though the chatting was said in different ways and in different accents, all were basically saying one thing: What in the blazes are we doing here?

The murmur was immediately silenced as the door to the briefing room opened. Jenny, Mrs. Wakeman, and all the other people turned to see who had come in. It was a man around late forties of age wearing a UNERU uniform and blue beret. He had broad shoulders and tough, grizzled features, with a confident, disciplined cadence to his walk to match. All of that would have made him an intimidating man. Would have, except for the fact that he was _less than five feet tall_.

"Napoleon strikes back." Jenny smirked, earning a glare from her mother.

The man walked to the front of the briefing room and turned to address the occupants. When he spoke, it was with an English accent. "Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, I am Colonel Terrence Little of the United Nations Extraterrestrial Response Unit."

"Well whadda ya know, he lives up to his name. Or should that be lives down?" Jenny heard someone behind her to comment, causing her to giggle.

"XJ-9!" hissed Dr. Wakeman in warning, silencing her daughter.

The Colonel didn't notice any of that and continued to speak. "I'm sure most of you are wondering what you're doing here, so I shan't beat around the bush. Yesterday, on oh-nine hundred hours, Pacific Standard Time, a drilling operation chartered by a scientific research institute uncovered this" the Colonel pushed a button on a projector "under 500 meters of ice in Dome Circe, Antarctica."

The projector projected an image of what looked like a partially uncovered sphere with some sort of structure sticking out the top. This immediately caused a murmur—louder than the murmur earlier—to rise from the gathered scientists. Jenny, however, was unimpressed. _So? It's just another alien ship. _She thought.

"Further scans reveal more of the ship's structure," continued Colonel Little. A new image was projected onto the screen. It was a CGI image of a sphere just like the one shown earlier, but this one had a rim around it. Also, it had a cluster of boosters on what seemed to be the back end and a gap on the rim in what seemed to be the front end. "The approximate length of the ship has also been revealed from these scans. Roughly 3000 meters."

Instantly the news caused an uproar. Everyone in the room suddenly seemed to get the urge to yell. Even Jenny seemed to be stunned by the news. Sure, she had seen and even fought alien ships before, but none that were _three kilometers _in length. Now, she had an idea why she had been called to this. A 3 km long starship on the planet Earth was nothing to sneeze at.

In all the noise, no one seemed to notice a single fly hovering in the middle. It watched the screen intently, recording everything.

Author's Note: Well, that was chapter two. I'll try to get the next one up soon. In the meantime, please R&R this one.


	3. AHAB and SID

Author's Note: Thanks to those who've read and reviewed, here's the next chapter. I was supposed to submit this earlier, but was still having the bugs fixed. Anyway, on with the chapter.

Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.

Story Title: Metal Army

Chapter Title: AHAB and SID

**Cluster Stealth Wasp, approximately 500 ft. above the USS _Renzetti_**

"3000 meters?!" gasped the red roach drone as he watched the feed from the fly drone. "That's larger than the Queen's Royal Flagship! Way, way larger."

"An advanced ship this big in human hands can't be good news for the Cluster," the green roach drone said a bit more phlegmatically. "RD-6287, patch this through the long range comms and transmit it to Cluster Prime, top priority level."

"That's too risky, RD-9980." RD-6287 pointed out. "We're in the middle of a carrier battle group here, and as primitive as their sensors are they might be able to pick up the transmission. Especially since we're this close!"

"We have to chance it, information of this level could get us promoted!" RD-9980 countered.

"What use is a promotion if we get shot down!"

"Just do it! Trust me, these human sensors won't detect the transmission."

The red-colored RD-6287 glared at his green counterpart. "If we get shot down, I'm ripping out your central processor."

RD-6287 turned to the control panels. A few minutes and several control panel buttons later, their transmission was connected directly to the Cluster Imperial Palace, deep in the heart of Cluster Prime. The red roach drone turned to face his green partner. "Transmission sent, the human vessels do not appear to have detected us."

"See, what did I tell you? There's nothing to worry about." RD-9980 said in a reassuring tone. RD-6287 nodded, but he was far from reassured.

**Command Bridge, USS _Renzetti_**

A junior lieutenant manning a sensor station frowned as his flickered. At first, he had dismissed it as nothing, but the screen had been flickering in the same area for quite some time, now. And it was starting to look suspiciously regular. He recalibrated his sensors, hopping to clear up whatever it was that was causing the flicker, but his scopes stayed the same, still flickering in the same area.

"Sir," he called out to the _Renzetti_'s Captain. "I think there's something you should see here."

"What is it?" the Captain asked as he walked over to the Lieutenant's sensor station.

"My scope's been flickering again and again for the past few minutes, Skipper." The sailor said. "And it's been happenin' in the exact same area."

The Captain leaned over to see what the Junior Lieutenant was talking. He squinted at the screen, watching it carefully. His face contorted into a slight frown as he saw the flickering in the area the sailor had pointed out, but no matter how much the Lieutenant recalibrated, the sensors were indicating nothing solid. He turned to the young sailor.

"It's probably just a glitch," the Captain said. "It happens all the time."

"Yes, sir." The Lieutenant said, but he still looked troubled.

"Still, we'd better keep a close eye on it. We can't afford to be lax in an operation this sensitive."

The young Lieutenant nodded, proceeding to recalibrate his sensors further.

**Cluster Imperial Palace, Cluster Prime**

Footsteps reverberated with metallic clanks down the corridors of the Cluster  
Imperial Palace. The source of the footsteps seemed, from afar, to be a single yellow-colored roach, not exactly an uncommon sight in the Palace. But upon closer inspection, one would begin to see differences in the yellow drone that set it apart from your standard roach drone.

The yellow drone appeared to be slightly taller than a standard roach drone and had a transparent dome in place of its head. Within this clear dome was a small cockpit upon which a tiny yellow-and-green colored robot controlled the drone body. The little robot scowled at the Palace guards whom he passed by, but all he elicited by doing so were barely suppressed sniggers. As he stopped in front of the door to the Queen's throne room, the face of the yellow-and-green robot twisted to a mask of anger.

"Insolent fools!" bellowed the small robot. "Do you not know who I am? I am the great Smytus! Conqueror of Enemies, Scourge of the Galaxy, Destroyer of Worlds—"

"And currently the six-inch high resident of an inverted fishbowl." An annoyed-sounding voice shot from behind Smytus, causing the Palace guards to snicker even louder.

The Cluster commander spun his yellow roach-drone-like body around to face whoever had insulted him. It turned out to be a blue-colored, mantis-like engineering drone with two robots behind him. The mantis robot had his arms folded and was tapping one of his four legs impatiently. Smytus glowered at him.

"You talk too impudently for a lowly Type-13 Engineering Drone referring to a great Commander such as I." Smytus growled in his best intimidation voice.

The ED-13 wasn't impressed. "And you talk too pompously for someone you can easily pick up and chuck down a toilet."

At this remark, the Palace guards flanking the throne room door broke into fits of laughter, causing Smytus to be further enraged. He flexed his hands around his drone body's control levers in an attempt to calm down. He couldn't let this non-combatant humiliate him like this! He had to bring this little mantis down a peg.

"Listen here, Eddie," Smytus retorted, using the nickname he knew ED-13s despised. "I have been called by the Queen for a very important appointment and I do not have time to squabble with a drone who couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. So why don't you just turn around and get out of my sight before I turn you into a pile of scrap!"

"I also have an appointment with Her Majesty," the ED-13 said calmly, not letting Smytus' attempts at insults get to him. "And you are currently holding me up. So you either get going or get out of the way because I don't have the time to listen to you ranting."

The shrunken Cluster Commander went livid. His temper got the better of him and he launched a punch at the blue Engineering Drone. But before his fist could make contact, a short, black, weevil-shaped robot, one of the two who were standing behind the engineering robot, got between him and the mantis robot, catching his fist with all four of its hands. Smytus merely sneered.

"So," he taunted. "Since you can't even defend yourself, you get this short, little robot to do it for you. Pathetic."

"I don't think you're in any position to be calling anyone short and little, Commander."

Smytus threw another punch with his free hand, but this was also caught before it made contact. This time by the second robot who had stood behind "Eddie", tall locust-like robot whose crooked mouth was currently twisted into a smile. When the tall robot spoke, it was is a hiss-like voice that seemed to be challenging the shrunken commander. "You gonna back off, or do I have to break your arm off?"

Smytus looked up at the locust robot's crooked smile from inside his transparent dome cockpit and saw the danger. He backed off, but not after making another crack about the Engineering Drone's cowardice. He spun around in a huff and proceeded to enter Vexus' throne room. The Palace guards struggled to stifle their chuckles when he passed by. ED-13 and his two companions shot triumphant looks at the back of Smytus' yellow drone body before following him into the throne room.

"Ah, Commander." Vexus greeted Smytus as he entered. "You're here at last."

"At your service, my liege." Smytus said, making his drone body bow.

"How's your new body?" Vexus asked, her voice falsely pleasant.

Smytus made a small scowl, which, fortunately for him, was easily hidden from the Queen because of Smytus' size. "It's fine, Your Majesty."

"Really? I was considering giving you a chance to have yourself restored to normal size but since you seem to be quite content with your current state I guess I can always…"

"Wait, Your Highness, I didn't mean it that way! I hate his body! I despise it with every wire of my being!"

"Hm…" purred the Cluster ruler. "So you're saying that you despise this body which I ordered you to be put in as punishment for your previous failure. In essence, you must be saying that you hate my order. Is that right, Commander?"

Smytus' oil went cold. "N-no, my Queen. Never! I would never question the justness of your punishments and orders! Not in a million years!"

"Yet you expressly said that you despise the body I ordered you to use with every wire of your being. Or did I mishear you?"

"It's not… I mean… What I was trying to say… Um… Uh… Oh boy…" Smytus struggled with his words, trying to find a way out of this particular semantic trap and finding none.

Vexus, in the meantime, was having fun flustering the Commander. It was good to see that she still inspired fear and awe, even in one of her more grandiloquent minions. She raised a hand, shutting Smytus up. "As enjoyable as it is to fluster you, Commander, I didn't call you here for that purpose alone."

She pressed a button on her throne, activating a holographic display. "A reconnaissance team on Earth sent us this transmission a few hours ago."

An image of what appeared to be a conference room of some sort appeared. It was full of humans but also included a very familiar feminine blue robot. "XJ-9!" Smytus exclaimed as the recording continued. An image of a short human in a white military BDU was addressing the crowd in the conference room.

_"A 3000-meter-long alien derelict in the Antarctic is certainly not something we can just ignore." _The short human was saying.

"3000 meters long?!" exclaimed Smytus while the recording continued.

_"We've deployed a UNERU battalion around the derelict and uncovered part of it, but we have yet to enter the derelict itself since we are not certain whether this vessel has an automated defense system or not." _The human pointed at XJ-9 and the human called Wakeman. "_That's where the Global Galactic Response Unit comes in. Dr. Wakeman, we'll need your robot to lead a scout team into the derelict vessel to ascertain if it has any automated anti-intruder system. And if it does, we want it to disable such as system. Can your robot do it?"_

Dr. Wakeman seemed to be about to answer, but XJ-9 cut her off. _"I can speak for myself. And the name's Jenny, not 'Global Galactic Response Unit' or 'robot'. As for what you want me to do, yeah, I can hack it. I just hope your guys don't slow me down."_

Dr. Wakeman gave XJ-9 a disapproving look for the impertinent tone she had used. The short human however just raised an eyebrow and continued. _"Yes, well, after the scouting team and the ro— I mean, Jenny clears out whatever automated defense system they come across, if any, we will then place a full three companies of UNERU troops to explore the rest of the—"_

_"Isn't three companies a little too much?" _a human in non-military clothing asked. _"I mean the ship is a derelict after all."_

_"For a vessel of such proportions, I am not willing to take any chances. After our troops have checked out the ship you scientist will then come into play. It will be your job to—" _

The human was interrupted again, this time it was because Queen Vexus turned off the recording. She faced Smytus. "I think it's apparent why this situation has captured my interest. XJ-9 herself is there along with a bunch of humans who would like nothing more than to utilize whatever they can learn from that derelict alien vessel. As primitive those bags of bio-matter, they can still learn. XJ-9 is already enough trouble by herself, the added pressure of humans armed with highly sophisticated alien technology is a thorn I would not want jammed into my side.

"I am putting you in command of an infiltration force, Commander Smytus. I want you to rendezvous with the recon team's Stealth Wasp and infiltrate that derelict. Once there, you should do all you can to learn or even collect anything about the ship that could be of use to the Cluster while denying the human's from learning anything from the ship they could use against us."

"Yes, Your Majesty, it shall be done." Smytus said. "I, Smytus, Scourge of the Galaxy, Destroyer of Worlds, and feared Conqueror of all who stand in my way, will not fail you."

"You had better not, Smytus." The Queen said, eyes narrowing. "Because if you do I will turn you into a hood ornament for my Royal Hovercar."

Smytus gulped. "I won't disappoint you, My Queen."

"One more thing, Commander. I also want you to assimilate XJ-9. We have dear little Jennifer her play with these monkeys for too long, it is time she take her rightful place among her own kind here in the Cluster."

"It will be done, Your Majesty."

"Alright then, go on, I want this mission completed as soon as possible."

Smytus gave a bow and was about to exit the throne room when the ED-13 unit he had been arguing with earlier spoke up. "Excuse me, Your Highness, but I believe I may have something that could greatly aid in Commander Smytus' mission."

The Queen arched up an eyebrow. "Really, what?"

"Your Majesty, I present to you the Advanced Hacking/Assimilation Bot" the mantis drone pointed to the tall, olive-green, locust like robot that had intimidated Smytus earlier, "and the Specialized Infiltration Drone," The mantis drone pointed to the small, weevil-like black robot, "But you can call them AHAB and SID."

"My queen, I must protest," Smytus objected. "A mission of this importance can't be used to field-test unproven robots, they might screw up the mission!"

"As loathe as I am to admit it, Smytus is right." Vexus said. "I cannot risk the failure of this mission by using it as a testing bed for your prototypes."

"But, my liege, AHAB and SID are far from prototypes. They are the end result of a long line of other prototypes, perfected over the course of their development. AHAB here not only can hack into and assimilate any computerized system, but he can also release a hundred miniature assimilation probes, expanding his assimilation abilities literally a hundred fold. This would make him perfect for assimilating XJ-9. As for SID, I'll let his abilities do the talking."

Taking his cue from what the engineer robot had said, SID initiated his cloaking device and disappeared from view. A moment later, he appeared before Smytus, surprising him so much that he nearly jumped out of his dome cockpit. But it didn't stop there. SID's body structure reassembled into a tall and thin form that was quickly covered up by a flawless hologram of Queen Vexus. The weevil drone reassembled himself again and projected the hologram of a roach drone. It kept on changing one disguise after another until Queen Vexus raised her hand, wordlessly ordering SID to stop.

"Very well," she said. "I shall give them a chance to live up to their designations. Commander, take them with you."

"B-but, My Queen—" Smytus began.

"Do you question my orders, Commander?"

"N-no, Your Majesty."

"Good, now go!"

Smytus muttered under his breath as he went out of the throne room. Following him were AHAB and SID. And ED-13's smug look.

Author's Note: Well, that's all for now. I'll try to get the next chapter up. I had to rush this up a bit because of my tight college schedule, so I'm sorry for any typos and mistakes.


	4. Cluster Inbound

Author's Note: As Deadeye1 pointed out, I was a tad harsh to Smytus in the last chapter. Okay, more than a tad. The reason for that is actually kinda petty and pretty childish. You see, Smytus kinda reminded me of a loudmouth classmate of mine who used to bully me. I always bore a grudge for that and, well, I guess I took it out on Smytus. But trust me, I wasn't planning on being that harsh on 'im for the entire fic. I actually planned for him to be quite competent in the later chapters.

As for the Star Wars thing, well, it really is kinda a lot like tokenism. Ever since I saw the Clone Wars cartoon I always wanted to see a fic where the Trade Fed battle droids got pitted against Jenny. But I will try to give them personalities instead of just being mindless droids. Anyway, enough excuses. Time to continue with the fic.

Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.

Story Title: Metal Army

Chapter Title: Cluster Inbound

**USS _Renzetti,_ now somewhere in the South Pacific**

Jenny stared glumly at the cold, blue waters of the South Pacific from the flight deck of the _Renzetti, _the phrase "Are we there yet?" repeating over and over in her mind like a mantra The carrier's slow transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific had wasted her entire weekend and left her feeling both bored and dejected. She understood what the UNERU wanted from her, but that didn't erase the fact that a perfect weekend had gone by without her enjoying it. If they only allowed her to fly there herself she probably would have cleared out the derelict ship in no time and still have time left over for some fun. Instead, the UNERU insisted on keeping her under their direct control, I. E., dragging her along with them.

She tried to pass her time by talking to the robots she found on the ship, but the naval maintenance bots and the UAV attack planes were even more dry and dull than their human military personnel. She actually did find fellow teenagers on the ship, but they were either newly-enlisted petty officers or dweeby hackers the UNERU had plucked from Internet Cafes, ill-kept apartments, or their mothers' houses. The former treated her like one of the UAV jets while the latter were more interested in trying to hack her systems than talk to her.

She had tried to talk to her mother—yes, she was that bored and desperate—but she was too busy socializing and technobabbling with her fellow scientists on the ship. Some of whom—surprise, surprise—turned out to be her former students. And Jenny knew that their "rousing" (insert heavy eye-rolling) conversations would have probably put her in permanent sleep mode.

"Pre-programmed responsibilities over personal enjoyment," Jenny muttered to herself. "Story of my five-year-long life."

She gave out a theatrical sigh and moved her attentions from the rolling blue waves to the drab gray hulls of the aircraft carrier's escorts. Her expression soured even more. Somehow, the ships' color schemes were not doing anything to lighten up her mood. She turned away and started back for the ship's lower access ways. Maybe she should just go into sleep mode until they made it to wherever they were going…

"Attention XJ-9 and all UNERU and civilian personnel," a voice blared out over the ship's PA system. "We are within jet chopper range of the derelict site, begin boarding your respective aircraft."

"Finally," Jenny said to no one. "The sooner we begin the sooner I can get this over with."

Suddenly, like ants abandoning a flooded anthill, UNERU troopers and scientists came rushing out from the carrier's lower levels and into the jet choppers. Jenny pushed against the human stampede, trying to look for her mother. But her mother was a diminutive woman, and the fact that she was wearing the same white winter gear as everyone else made her even harder to spot. Frustrated, Jenny activated her pigtail boosters and took to the air.

She scanned the ground, looking for a frock of standing white hair. She spotted one and sped towards it. "Mom?"

The person with standing white haired turned. It was a man considerably taller than her mother. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, sorry." Jenny said. "I thought you were someone else."

As Jenny took to the again, she heard the man say to his young assistant in what, to her, seemed to be an overly dramatic voice: "Come, Marty, to the time ma—I mean, chopper!"

_Geeze, what a nut job, _Jenny thought as she resumed her scanning. _I hope not every one here is that whacked. _Finally, she spotted another crop of white hair, this time though, she also caught a glint of red prescription glasses. Jenny zoomed down and managed to catch her Dr. Wakeman just as she boarded their assigned jet chopper.

With a roar, the jet chopper lifted of the deck. The engines realigned themselves horizontally before the jet chopper accelerated to supersonic speeds.

**Cluster Infiltration Sloop, 300,000 km from lunar orbit**

The insane twisting of colors gave way to the starry blackness of space as the 100-meter long, dragonfly-like Infiltration Sloop exited from the wormhole. Almost simultaneously, four smaller wormholes appeared and out each came a red ant drone. The ant drone escorts magnetically perched on the ship as its cloaking field activated, concealing both it and them.

Within the cloaked ship's bridge stood the drone vessel of Commander Smytus. Satisfied that his ship was not detected, he gave the order to proceed toward the planet. Before, he wouldn't have needed to cloak himself when approaching Earth, but the little monkeys were learning fast and already their pesky UNERU soldiers were starting to make their own combat starships. And as much as Smytus hated to admit human ingenuity, intelligence reports revealed that the UNERU ships increased in sophistication with every new ships that rolled out the human space yards. In fact, the humans were reported to have partially constructed a starship as large as a Cluster Star Carrier.

As if on cue, the ship itself came into sight. It was still strapped onto the orbital space yard and some of the hull plates were missing, but it was still huge. However, Smytus pretended not to be impressed. There were hundreds of Cluster ships that size and they were better designed. The Cluster Star Carriers were beetle-shaped with their engines tucked into the armored hull for protection. In contrast this human ship was saucer shaped with two very exposed engine pods sticking out of an almost cylindrical section that was attached to the saucer. Not at all a good design for a warship.

"Look at that pathetic human attempt to defy the Cluster," the Commander blustered. "Even a roach drone could shoot it down. All he'd need to do is blast those stupidly exposed engine nacelles!"

Even as he said that, a more analytical part of Smytus knew better. And if the humans managed to learn anything about the derelict, then he knew it would be increasingly hard for the Cluster to "liberate" the robots on Earth. And that wasn't counting XJ-9 whose track record was more than merely impressive.

"I would advise against that, Sir," came a monotonous voice from behind. Smytus spun in his tiny cockpit. It was the weevil-like drone, SID. "The chances for a successful infiltration would be greatly reduced if we dispatched a roach drone to attack that human vessel."

"That was just wishful thinking, you dud-drone," Smytus sneered. "I, Smytus, the greatest Commander the Cluster has ever known, know better than to jeopardize this mission!" _Especially since the Queen will turn me into a hood ornament if I fail. _He mentally added. SID, meanwhile, just remained expressionless, though this was probably due to that fact that he was built with non-expressive blank eyes and a fixed grill as his "mouth".

Smytus heard a snicker and turned, shooting a snarl. It was AHAB, and his crooked mouth was in barely suppressed leer. Smytus growled under his nonexistent breath, he still stung from the humiliation a mere ED-13 drone and his two creations had dealt him. And the fact that he had been forced to bring both of those said creations along did nothing to alleviate his mood. _I swear, _Smytus thought, _That I'll find a way to wipe the grin off that overgrown locust's face. _

The Infiltration Sloop continued onward, careful to avoid the space yard and the automated defense satellites in orbit. Every drone within the ship felt jittery as it hit the atmosphere. Sure, they were cloaked, but the heat of their re-entry would be visible to both visual and thermal sensors. The dragonfly-like ship continued, the heat of re-entry indeed producing bright gouts of flame. Luckily for the ship, the defense satellites and deep sensors were all pointed in the opposite direction.

Smytus allowed himself a surreptitious sigh of relief which, thanks to his shrunken size, went unnoticed. He stood up within the dome cockpit of his drone body and gave a green roach drone an order to open an encrypted channel to the Stealth Wasp just as they entered the lower atmosphere. A communications monitor emerged from the bridge's roof and on it appeared the image of two nervous-looking roach drones.

"Greetings, Commander," the red drone greeted nervously. "Are you sure it's sure to open a channel? We're following XJ-9 and the other humans right now and the risk of detection—"

"Bah," the Commander said, making his drone body wave it's arm dismissively. "You transmitted that recording all the way to Cluster Prime right over a human carrier battle group and you clearly were not detected."

"Well, yes," the green drone said. "but that was a one-way transmission—"

"Are you questioning an officer's decision?" Smytus said in a threatening tone that only seemed funny to the bridge crew, though it didn't seem so for the drones in the Stealth Wasp.

"N-no, Sir, we were merely pointing out risks."

"I concur with the Stealth Wasp crew, Commander." SID spoke up in his flat monotone. "Opening communications now increases that chances that we might be detected. Ill-advised for a proper infiltration."

Smytus' mouth reflexively twitched. He did not enjoy being told what to do by drones far below his designated rank, especially since this drone was practically an untested prototype. "Do not presume to tell me what to do, drone! I have been a Commander since I rolled off the assembly line, and I know what I am doing!"

From the edge of his vision, the Commander caught AHAB open and close its mouth. He knew that the locust drone had probably wanted to say something snide. His face twitched again. He never suffered such insolence in his former commands, but then he had been larger than any drone back then. His mouth tightened to a determined line. Whatever he took he was gonna complete this mission, if only to get his old body size back. He swore to himself that only then would he find as way to get back at everyone who had mocked him. If possible, including the Queen.

He shook the vengeful thoughts out of his head and turned back to the comm monitor. "Just keep following XJ-9 and her monkey companions, we'll rendezvous at the alien vessel's crash site."

The communications monitor receeded up to the ceiling as the Cluster ship turned toward its destination, swirling the clouds as it spun. With a suppressed roar of its engines, the cloaked vessel sped forward.

**Somewhere en route to Dome Circe, Antarctica**

The mother penguin stood vigilant, keeping her single egg between her legs. She patiently kept it warm as she waited for her mate to return and bring her food. She looked about, keeping watch fro any possible threats. Close to her, dozens of other penguins did the same. Then, something caught their eyes. They all turned their attention to little dots in the sky that seemed to grow larger and larger. They watched uncomprehendingly as the dots slowed down slightly and came lower…

The penguins screamed in panic as the strange things roared past them, causing snow to wash over them and knock them. They frantically searched for their eggs, which they found in short order, and honked indignantly at the passing jet choppers.

The penguins' protests were, though, unnoticed by the passengers of the offending vehicles. Many of whom were more concerned about their destination than their flight. One of the passengers, however, just stared out the jet chopper's windows and tapped her foot impatiently. This passenger was a feminine-shaped, blue-colored robot who was beginning to loose all her patience with the slow speed that events seemed to be proceeding in.

An aggravated "Finally!" came from her mouth a the jet chopper she was in finally stopped and started to settle down. The rear doors had barely opened when she quickly unstrapped herself and jumped out of her chair. She followed the UNERU troopers in winter BDUs out of the jet chopper much to the frustration of her mother who had wanted her to wait.

"Honestly, XJ-9, I wished you weren't so impatient." Dr. Wakeman. "This could be the greatest scientific discovery in decades and you're acting like you'd rather be somewhere else."

"Uh, hello? It took you that long to notice?" Jenny huffed. "Of course I'd rather be somewhere else! If it weren't for this I probably would've had a very enjoyable weekend."

"An enjoyable weekend?!" Mrs. Wakeman repeated. "After you've been briefed about the importance of this situation all you can think about is your personal gratification? Never have I had creation of mine that was capable of being so selfish! Well, with the possible exception of XJ-6."

"You're calling me selfish?" Jenny seemed indignant. "Time and again I've had my chances for a normal teenage life tossed down the pooper just because of some stupid mission or crazy upgrade! Remember those freaky eyes you set me up with, or that time you made me incapable of retracting my monitor, and don't even get me started on the—"

"Excuse me?" a voice interrupted. It was Captain Burke. "Dr. Wakeman, Col. Little sent me to get you and XJ-9 to him immediately."

"We'll continue this discussion later, XJ-9." The doctor said to her robot daughter. She then nodded to Ct. Burke, silently thanking him for saving her from another of XJ-9 overly dramatic tirades that made her question the wisdom of her decision to design a robotic _teenager. _She followed the Captain with Jenny trailing behind her sourly.

Author's Note: Okay, that's all for now. I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as I can.


	5. Into the Ninth Circle

Author's Note: I know I do tend to get bogged down in the details and in the villains' side of the story. I'm trying to find a balance by making a fic where you can picture the details in your head without over doing, but sometimes I go overboard. Especially with technology and the bad guys.

Anyway, I'll try to speed things up a bit more. Lookin' back, I think the approach to Antarctica was getting old. I'll also try to delve more into the good guys. So far (as pointed out) they've been more like extras in my fic, and I don't want that myself.

Oh, one more thing, I'm also putting in Phinneas Mogg in this chapter. I forgot to put him in this fic and, being the renowned scientist I assume he is, he would probably be called in for something like an alien ship being found in Antarctica. Luckily for me, Coyoteloon's "Countdown to Mindshatter" reminded me 'bout Mogg.

Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.

Story Title: Metal Army

Chapter Title: Into the Ninth Circle

**Derelict site, Dome Circe, Antarctica**

Jenny followed her Mom and the soldiers leading them while trying to wipe the sullen look on her face. As much as she hated to be here, stuff like this _was_ her job after all. And moping around while she did here job would just earn her a sermon that would rival one any holier-than-thou televangelist could come up with. That, and maybe a possible "upgrade." The last time that had happened she'd found that her monitor couldn't retrat. Just the thought of it caused her to cringe.

Jenny started to idly look around. She could see some other people shivering in their thick winter wear as they went about whatever job they had. She felt sorry for them but honestly couldn't relate. The antifreeze that kept her oil, hydraulics, and lubricants from freezing up in the cold of space kept her just as comfortable in the Antarctic environment. _One of the few advantages of being a robot freak, I suppose. _Jenny thought.

Then, as she turned her attention back to the soldiers she was following, she caught her mother's expression sour from the corner of her eyes. She thought it was because of their earlier disagreement until she followed her Mom's gaze. It was her old "acquaintance", Phinneas Mogg, who was talking to Colonel Little. Jenny's expression also soured, remembering very well how Mogg had first greeted her. As if on cue, Mogg turned and spotted them.

"Ah, Nora," Mogg said in a tone that almost sounded mocking. "Late again, as usual."

"How did you get here, Phinneas?" Mrs. Wakeman asked, ignoring Mogg's tone. "I didn't see you on the _Renzetti_."

"On my personal hover jet, of course." Mogg said in a none-too-subtle boastful tone. "As _comfortable _military jet choppers are, I prefer to travel in a manner more befitting of a scientific mind of my stature."

Jenny rolled her eyes upon Mogg's reply. _Yup, just as I remembered._

"I won't even ask about how you managed to afford a personal hover jet." Dr. Wakeman answered. "I'm sure you have a very interesting story about it, but I am frankly nt interested in hearing it. Tough I do wonder how you managed to convince the UNERU to use a non-UN vehicle."

"He didn't," the diminutive English colonel said, shooting a peeved look at Mogg. "That's what we were 'discussing' when you arrived. One of our SAM-fitted hover-tanks almost blasted him out of the bloody sky because of that stupid stunt."

Mogg grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. Taking shots at Nora was one thing, but he in no way wanted to thrown wisecracks at a colonel. Especially one who was already irked at him. Seeing this, both Jenny and her mother shared a smirk.

"As much as I'd like to give some sort of penalty to Dr. Mogg, we did not come here for that reason." The colonel said. "I've just been told that the drilling team has just cut into the ship."

He turned to Jenny. "XJ-9, we'll need you to lead a squad of Ct. Burke's men into the derelict."

"That's what I'm here for." Jenny sighed, not bothering to tell the colonel to call here Jenny. At least they hadn't called her "robot" or "Global Robotic Response Unit".

The colonel turned, signaling the others to follow him. He led them to a drilling site in which lay a hole large enough to accommodate USS_ Renzetti._ Jenny looked in awe. Even though she knew what to expect, the sight was still spectacular. It wasn't every day you saw mile-wide hole with a partially uncovered, 3-km long starship laying within. Beside her, the scientists and the soldiers shared the same expression.

Colonel Little gestured toward a series of spikes dug into the pit's sides with rappelling cables tied to them. The soldiers and specialists grabbed on to the cables and carefully made their way downward. Jenny, however, merely activated her pigtail boosters and flew down toward the center of the man-made crater.

Minutes later, the others caught up to her. They all stood in awe, watching the curve of the spherical central section of the partially buried starship. The Colonel pointed at some scaffolding that led up to a section that rose from the spherical part of the ship. "That section appears to be this vessel's bridge. We've drilled an opening into one of its windows that will serve as our point of entry."

"Why is it all the way up there?" Jenny asked. "Wouldn't it be easier for all of us if you just drilled a hole into the hull?"

"It's not that simple, robot." Mogg answered. "This derelict's hull seems to be made of an alloy capable of resisting focus-laser drills. Even the windows were difficult to penetrate since they are made with some sort of transparent metal composite."

Jenny shrugged. "Whatever, let's just get this over with." She faced Ct. Burke. "Where's the squad I'm supposed to lead into this thing?"

The captain barked an order to some of the men in his company. The captain and six of his troopers peeled off from the rest of the troops and approached the teen robot. She looked over the men and women she was supposed to be leading before she shrugged and signaled them to follow her.

**Cluster Infiltration Sloop, approaching derelict site**

The powerful but noisy main engines of the Infiltration Sloop shut down as the slower but quieter electromagnetic levitators came on line. The cloaked dragonfly-shaped vessel was already in close proximity to its destination and couldn't risk having its presence revealed because of its own loud engines. It flew silently and unseen over the derelict site before settling down on its "legs" a few kilometers away.

The four ant drones that had clung to its hull the whole time jumped off, but they were careful to stand well within the cloaking field. There was a hiss of hydraulics as a ramp opened up from the ship's underside. Out of it came several read and green roach drones, a locust drone, a weevil drone, and glass-topped robot that looked somewhat like a roach drone.

"At last, we are here!" Smytus declared. "Soon we shall infiltrate the ship, assimilate its technology and XJ-9, and open a can of Cluster butt-whooping upon the pathetic hairless apes!"

"You know," AHAB said in a barely suppressed superior tone. "Humans aren't really hairless. Most of their body hair is just so thin and short that you don't really see it."

"I didn't come here for a biology lesson." Smytus said sounding annoyed. "I came here to do a mission. And I, the incomparable Commander Smytus, will personally lead the infiltration."

"Sure, _Sir_," AHAB said, dripping contempt on the word 'Sir'. "But how are we supposed to infiltrate that ship in the first place? It's not like we can walk up and ask nicely."

The Commander scowled within his small cockpit. The contempt in the locust robot's tone had not escaped him, but he had to admit that the annoying hacking/assimilation robot did have a point. Of course, he wasn't going to say so.

"Do you think that I, Smytus, Destroyer of Worlds, do not know what I am doing?" Smytus blustered. "First we, ah… um… uh…"

"Brilliant strategy, Sir." AHAB said sardonically. "Not how would we execute operation 'ah um uh'?"

Smytus' face twisted into a mask of rage. He was about to scream something at the insolent robot, but SID interrupted him before he could. "I believe I may have a way, Commander."

Smytus turned a snarl toward SID in response. The weevil drone didn't seem to be shaken by the hostile response and continued in his emotionless monotone. "Using my infiltration capabilities I can enter the human's drilling area and extract the necessary information we need for a proper infiltration."

Smytus glared at him. As much as he hated to admit it, SID's suggestion made perfect sense. But he knew that if he took it to wholeheartedly he would just give AHAB more material for snide remarks. He considered vaporizing AHAB before taking SID's suggestion, but that would merely leave him something to explain to Vexus later. Oh well, what choice did he have. He shot a tiny warning glare at AHAB before he spoke.

"Fine, do it." Smytus said. "But come back here after you've gathered enough data."

SID gave a salute as confirmation before opening his wings. The coils of the wings' electromagnetic levitators hummed slightly as they lifted SID of the ground. The weevil drone initiated its own cloaking device before speeding towards the derelict site.

**Alien starship's bridge, derelict site**

Jenny slowly entered through the hole in the derelict's window, her eyes scanning the bridge, looking for any possible threats. Ct. Burke and his squad of UNERU troops followed her inside, beam rifles at the ready. The dim light entered through the thickly iced-over, giving a faint, almost unearthly, light to the bridge.

An imaginary lump formed in Jenny's non-existent throat. The overall impression given by the faint light and hollowness of the air within the bridge gave the creepy impression of the derelict being a ghost ship. And looking at how the UNERU troops nervously tapped their weapons, she knew she wasn't the only one who thought so. She activated her built-in night-vision while the soldiers flipped on their NV goggles. What they saw didn't make them feel any better.

There were frozen and preserved dead bodies of aliens littered all over the bridge. One of the bodies was slumped on a terminal with what appeared to be a weapon clenched in one hand and some sort of disc in the other. A part of the side of its head was… _gone _while its still open eyes stared at the intruders blankly. Jenny suppressed a scream and a shudder.

Sure, she had dispatched a few Cluster drones before, and the vaporization she inflicted on invading alien ships could not be good for their crews either. But part of her programming made her emotionally distanced from all that. As long as she protected humans, everything was fine. It was an emotional fail-safe Dr. Wakeman had installed to prevent her creation from being wracked with guilt.

The thing was, it didn't have the same effect on Jenny when faced with dead beings she hadn't fought. Had the UNERU troopers not been wearing NV goggles they would've sworn that they'd seen Jenny turn from light-blue to a sickly shade of green. Never had Jenny thought that she'd ever get the feeling of wanting to barf.

She pried her eyes away from the dead alien and started to resume her scanning of the bridge, being careful not to look directly at the other dead. The visibly shaken UNERU troops did the same, though both them and jenny knew that they'd probably see more of the same as they explored deeper into the frozen starship.

Suddenly, one of the UNERU troops slipped on the iced-over floor of the bridge. He fell right on the alien slumped on the terminal, shattering its body. Everyone spun around to face him as he involuntarily screamed an clambered away in panic. Before Captain burke could reprimand him, a disc-like device, dislodge from the dead aliens now shattered hand, clattered to the floor and activated.

Everyone's attention was drawn to the device as a quarter-sized bluish hologram of the alien was projected from the device. And as if that wasn't shocking enough, it spoke in thickly accented yet unmistakable _English._

"_This is Puule Gaarko, chief designer of the Baktoid Armor Worrrrrrrrksho-shop-shop-shop...." _The hologram said, repeating itself. Clearly broken.

"Ooookay," Jenny said with a tone of disbelief. "This guy is speaking English, right? Please tell me I'm not the only one who heard it speak in English."

The rest of the UNERU soldiers could only nod as Captain Burke nervously reached for his radio.

"Um, Colonel Little," he began. "You might wanna see this…"

**Outside the derelict pit**

A technician rubbed his eyes with his fingertips as he stood from the mobile computer terminal within the insulated tent. He put his winter wear back on and exited the tent. He was eager to join the rest of his colleagues down by the derelict itself.

Unbeknownst to him, he was being watched by an invisible presence. A cloaked robot watched his every move, taking in every detail with its blank unexpressive eyes. The robot observed every little nuance in the technician's movements, burning it into his memory banks.

When the technician was far enough, the robot began to change. Its body shifted in shape slightly as it settled gently to the ground. Its cloak deactivated and was quickly replaced by a perfect holographic copy of the technician. SID gave himself a second to adjust to the new body configuration before he strode purposefully into the tent.

He quickly reached for the computer and accessed the data it contained just by touching it with his fingers. The screen displayed nothing but binary as SID simultaneously accessed and copied the computer's files in a matter of seconds. His holographic disguise smiled as he exited from the tent.

He took a quick look around, making sure no one was looking his way, before he re-cloaked, reconfigured, and flew back toward the Infiltration Sloop.

Author's Note: Well, that's all for now, I'll try to get the next chapter up next week.. Kudos to the person who guesses where I got the chapter title from and what it means.


	6. Opening Pandora's Box

Author's Note: Okay, time for some reviewer responses. While I did start Mogg out here portrayed as a weasel, he won't remain that way for the entire fic. I'm gonna take the liberty of assuming that Mogg and Doc W were friends at some point in their lives and grew--or were driven—apart. I will try to have them rebuild that assumed friendship as this fic continues.

As for the Star Wars tech thing, I based it on the _Incredible Cross-Sections _book for Episode Two. In the ICS it was stated that light turbolasers can pack multiple megatons of power while heavy turbolasers can dish out up to_ 200 gigatons. _Kind of unbelievable, I know, but the ICS is considered SW canon (at least according to Star Wars Insider #68). Anyway, since SW ships can take many such turbolaser blows I'm assuming non-megatonal drilling tools won't cut into it easily.

And, yes, AHAB is meant to be annoying and insolent. Very insolent. But don't worry, karma will insure that that same insolence will come back to bite him in the rear exhaust vent. As for SID, while he did take part in mocking Smytus the first time he was introduced, he is meant to be a pretty flat and emotionless character. At least when he's doing a mission. You'll notice that I made him somewhat differential to Smytus in the last couple of chapters.

As for introspection, that's also one of the factors in storytelling I have trouble getting the right balance. When I'm hurrying I tend to put too little, but sometimes I also tend to put in to much. Anyway, keep the critique coming. I wanna improve my writing and they help a lot.

Disclaimer: I neither own MLAATR nor Star Wars.

Story Title: Metal Army

Chapter Title: Opening Pandora's Box

**Alien vessel, derelict site**

Dr. Wakeman climed up the scaffoliding carefully, following Col. Little and his men into the bridge of the alien derelict. Following her were Dr. Mogg, several other civilian specialists the UNERU had brought, and several more UNERU troopers. She quickly climbed into the hole drilled into one of the vessel's windows, and stepped into the bridge. She was eager—actually, excited, but it wouldn't have been scientifically professional for her to even think that--to see what the mysterious derelict had to offer.

The first thing that caught her eyes upon stepping into the frozen ship's bridge was a small bluish glow somewhere in the middle of the bridge. The glow seemed to be in the shape of a humanoid alien and was currently illuminating a few figures. With the same curiosity that made her so apt at the sciences, Dr. Wakeman moved closer toward the glow.

As she walked towards the blue hologram, her foot suddenly crunched into something. She looked down, and immediately wished she hadn't. In the dim light she could just see her foot was currently lodged into the chest of a frozen alien corpse. And its blank, dead eyes were staring blankly at her, almost accusingly. Whatever scientifically professional demeanor she had tried to project quickly disappeared.

The diminutive woman screamed involuntarily, quickly yanking her foot out of the corpse's chest. Everyone in the ship spun at her screams, the UNERU troopers whirled with guns at the ready. Just as she was regaining her composure, something grabbed the doctor's shoulder, causing her to let out another bout of yelping.

"Mom!" the thing that grabbed her said in a very familiar voice. "Calm down, it's just me."

"Oh, um, XJ-9," Dr. Wakeman sighed in relief. "You startled me."

"Startled?" another voice said. "I think 'scared witless' is a more appropriate term."

The white-haired scientist turned to see people staring at her. One of them was Mogg, she could make out the mocking smile in the faint light. "Oh, Nora, you should've seen yourself! Pity I didn't have a camera handy, that picture would've been perfect for my office desk."

"Yes," Nora said, teeth gritted in embarrassment & annoyance. "I'm sure it would've."

Mogg just shot her his oh-so-familiar superior grin and continued toward the holographic projection. Dr. Wakeman just stood where she was and burned in humiliation. Being insulted by Mogg and his cronies was one thing, but in front of a large portion of the scientific community and the UNERU was quite another. And the worse part of it was, she had actually given the fodder for the said humiliation. Mogg had just added some of his own seasoning.

"Mom, you alright?" her robot daughter asked beside her.

"Yes," she replied, teeth still gritted in mortification. "I'm quite alright, XJ-9."

She turned to face her creation and saw that XJ-9 seemed to have a very sickened look on her face. Immediately, Nora's consternation was replaced with concern. As XJ-9's mother, she had seen much of the teen robot's many moods, but she had never seen her this visibly disturbed before. Well, okay, there was that one time when XJ-9 discovered that her favorite cute boy band was in actuality 30-something year old bald men wearing wigs. But that was beside the point.

"XJ-9, is something wrong?"

"Huh? Oh, it's nothing, Mom," XJ-9 answered nonchalantly, a little too nonchalantly. "I'm fine, really."

The blue robot then shot a look at some xenobiologists examining a dead alien. The disgusted look on her immediately became more pronounced. And this didn't escape Nora Wakeman who suddenly realized what was wrong. If she, a grown and somewhat detached scientist, had reacted so badly at the sight of an alien cadaver, how would it have affected a robot girl with a very impressionable and easy-to-rattle teenage mind?

True, she had installed an emotional failsafe program that made her daughter somewhat emotionally detached during her assignments. But that only activated during tense combat situations. And while she had been leading armed troops in this particular assignment, it could hardly be called a tense combat situation. That meant that her daughter only had her teenage persona to cope with the shock of seeing dead beings that were once sentient, living creatures. And while the teenage mind could cope with many things, dead aliens staring blankly and creepily at you were probably not on the list.

"Don't worry, Jenny," Dr. Wakeman said as if to a young child, using the name XJ-9 preferred. "It's all right, those dead aliens can't harm you."

"Mom, I'm not a little kid." Jenny replied rolling her eyes, though her expression showed that the doctor's attempt at reassuring her was not unappreciated.

The diminutive woman just gave her six-foot tall daughter a slight smile and both headed for the where the holographic device was. Though, this time, both carefully watched where they stepped.

**Cluster Infiltration Sloop**

AHAB stood just outside the Infiltration Sloop, fixing a sneering look at the drone suit that held Commander Smytus. The shrunken robot growled at him from behind the glass dome of his cockpit, but thanks to the Commander's current size it was far from intimidating. AHAB just kept on sneering, openly showing insolence that would've gotten him vaporized had he turned it on a full-sized command robot. Luckily for him, Smytus was far from being considered full-sized. Besides, if the little robot wanted to throw down with him, he would be more than ready to oblige.

The Commander finally turned away from him and started barking orders at some roach drones. AHAB just smirked. Ever since he rolled off ED-13's laboratory he had always despised command-type robots—with the exception of Queen Vexus, of course. He didn't know exactly why, but it probably had something to do with ED-13's animus against command drones. Eh, like creator like creation he supposed. Go figure.

Well, whatever the reason, he always relished the chance to bring down command units a peg or two, or ten. And the fact that Smytus already had the stigma of failure and disgrace—and a six-inch height—made him the perfect target of opportunity. Of course, he knew he shouldn't push his luck too far. But while he could, he was gonna milk it for all it was worth.

Suddenly, his "brother", SID, appeared in midair and settled to ground. Immediately, Smytus turned to him. "Finally, you're here. What took you so long?"

SID just remained his usual stoic self and droned out in his usual monotone. "I have gathered the information necessary for us to formulate a proper infiltration. Would you like me to project them, Sir?"

"Sure, why not." Smytus snarled, apparently annoyed at SID's maddeningly emotionless behavior. AHAB just chuckled silently and shook his head. Here he was being as insolent as he could just to annoy Smytus and his "brother" was doing so by being pretty deferential. What made it funnier was that SID was really earnest at being as respectful as possible.

SID gave out a slight clicking and humming as his holographic projection system activated. But instead of projecting a disguise hologram, the weevil robot projected a wire-frame schematic of the alien derelict. "According to the information the humans gathered based on their latest scans, the derelict vessel lays under 537.68 meters of ice and is tilted toward the left at an angle of 16.08 degrees. The scans also reveal that the bottom sections have sustained considerable damage, indicating that the ship crash-landed and skidded on the ground for a considerable distance."

The holographic image flipped to show the bottom area of the alien vessel. It seemed to be jagged indicating that some of the hull plates had sheered off as it skidded along the ground. AHAB saw Smytus lean forward on his tiny cockpit and stroke his chin thoughtfully. AHAB rolled his. _As if he really was capable of **real** thought_, he thought.

"Hm, that gives me an idea…" Smytus said, trailing off as if in deep thought. Of course, to AHAB this was the perfect opportunity for yet another none-too-helpful snide remark.

"Wow, really? That's just amazing!" AHAB said, putting as much sarcasm as was semantically possible in every word.

Smytus chose to ignore that one and continued, "We have a Drill Mite armored personnel carrier in the hold of the ship, right? We could use that to drill into the ice until we're right under that alien vessel. Then, we'll just drill ourselves near one of the hull breaches and we could use them as our means of entrance. It's the perfect plan! Unless _someone_ had an objection…"

The Commander turned a sharp look at both SID and AHAB. The latter opened his mouth to say something spiteful, but the former cut him off before he could do so. "There are no objections, Commander. Your plan is workable."

SID turned a warning look at AHAB, but since his face was non-expressive his point really didn't come across. The locust-like machine spoke. "Wow, an honest-to-goodness workable from Commander Smytus, it must be some sort of omen. Next thing you know the Five Rider-Bots of the Apocalypse are gonna come barreling through on their skybikes."

"Hah, at least I came up with a plan," Smytus countered. "You've done nothing so far except make disrespectful remarks toward a superior officer. So watch it, you're on thin ice!"

AHAB raised an eyebrow and banged a foot against the ice. "Funny, doesn't seem thin to me."

"Ha, ha," Smytus said dryly. "You're a regular comedian."

"Thanks, and you're a regular pipsqueak."

Smytus' face reddened. "That's it, one more crack out of you and I'm gonna personally turn you into scrap metal!"

"Bite my shiny metal tush." AHAB answered.

"THAT'S IT! I'M GONNA—" Smytus started rage, but then two drones blocked the Commander and restrained him.

"Whoa, take it easy, Sir!" One said. "The technician said you needed to watch your oil pressure."

"Yeah," the other agreed. "You need to calm down, Commander. Find your happy place, find your happy place…"

Meanwhile, SID stepped up to AHAB and glared at him. "You must stop this at once, AHAB."

"Oh, come on, SID." AHAB said. "I was just tryin' to humble the guy. Cog knows he needs to be humbled."

"I'm serious, AHAB." SID said, shaking a warning finger at AHAB. "We need to make sure this mission is a success, and all this mockery does nothing to assure that."

"It's not our problem," the locust-like drone snorted. "It's Smytus' mission, if it fails he pays the price, not us."

"Wrong. Need I remind you that we are untested prototype designs who are merely 'tagging along' on this mission. If it fails both of us stand a good chance of being discontinued. I wouldn't want that, would you?"

AHAB opened his mouth to counter, but then closed it again. He hated to admit it, but SID had a point. If they failed they stood a good chance of being discontinued. And there were only three possibilities for discontinued models.

The first possibility was the best they could hope for. If the designs were versatile enough, they could be reprogrammed to do menial task and maybe even assigned a family. The second was a far less reassuring alternative. Many discontinued models were melted down for scrap and recycled. But even that wasn't as bad as the third alternative.

The third only happened if the Queen was in a not-so-happy mood. Her Highness was known to use discontinued models—sometimes even non-discontinued models—as "stress-relieving" devices. And if there was one thing a drone didn't want it was being used as something Vexus could take her anger out on.

"Alright, SID, you win. I'll stop with the insults."

"Good. Now come on," the black robot said, pointing at the Drill Mite two of the escort ant drones were unloading from the ship, "lets go."

As they headed for the ship AHAB pulled out the hand he had hid behind his back while he was talking to SID. Two of its three fingers were crossed.

**Alien vessel**

"Hm, interesting." Jenny and Dr. Wakeman heard Mogg say. "This is apparently a holographic recording device. What's perplexing is, there seems to be optical receptors that might be used to record an image."

The device in question was held in Mogg's right hand. It was still projecting the same hologram it had projected when Jenny and Ct. Burke's squad had found it, and it was still stuck saying "shop-shop-shop…" repeatedly.

"Maybe it uses non-optical means to record the image." Dr. Wakeman said. "If you'll notice, the image isn't in full color but in hues of blue. This leads me to think that this device doesn't actually 'see' what is being recorded but instead scans it and forms an image from the said scanning."

"Or, it could be that the image projector can only project in blue hues, nullifying whatever color an image may have." Mogg answered. "Though from the lack of any visible image capture receptors, I'm inclined to agree with you."

At that, Jenny raised an eyebrow. Mom and Mogg actually agreeing on something? That was new, but, surprisingly, not really unexpected. Whatever differences they had with each other, both still had the common interest of science. And Jenny knew that her Mom was capable of forgetting everything else when some interesting sciency stuff caught her attention. Maybe Mogg, as much of a jerk as he seemed, was also like that. Well, at least she thought so.

Whatever the reason, his mother and her rival were currently discussing the possible operating mechanisms in a civil manner that would have fooled you into thinking that they were friends. But, of course, peace never lasts long—heck, that was one of the reasons she was built—and her mother was no exception. Though this time the civil moment was interrupted not by either of the rivals, but by the British accented voice of Colonel Little.

"I'm sure all this is very interesting, but I'm more concerned with the entire message recorded on that little device. And the fact that it was speaking English."

"American English or British English?" some random soldier quipped, though a look from the colonel immediately cowed the UNERU trooper.

"What's so strange about that?" one of the teen hackers Jenny had met on the_ Renzetti _asked. "I mean every alien or Cluster invader that ever landed always spoke in English."

"Actually," a xeno-culture expert answered. "Those aliens only speak English when they're on Earth, they speak in their native languages outside our solar system. As for the Cluster, there is evidence that a large part of the Cluster Empire's original founders originated from rogue Earth robots."

"But that doesn't explain this little fact," another random scientist added. "The way the ice is layered around this ship, it has to have been here for at least a thousand years! And I don't think there was anything anywhere near English as we know it today back then."

"Maybe is ship is from the future!" the white-haired scientist Jenny had mistaken for her mother several hours before suggested. "This entire could be a time machine!"

"Not the time machine thing again!" moaned the scientists young assistant. "Doc, what is it about you and time machines—"

Jenny listened to all this impassively. Forgetting the fact they were on a three-kilometer long ship that was full of dead bodies and partially buried under 500 meters ice, this conversation was actually pretty dull. She heard this time of talk every time her mother had some new upgrade she wanted to try out on her. Well, that and the episodes of that "Star Tech" show Brad liked to watch.

She turned and saw that Col. was also getting impatient with the discussions of the civilian specialists. They had been discussing and arguing quite some time now and the holographic device was still repeating the word "shop", still no where near repaired. Deciding that she did not want a colonel loosing his patience, and since she was getting impatient with all the discussions herself, she quickly reached over and snatched the device out of Mogg's hand.

"Hey, I was examining that, automaton!" Mogg shouted indignantly.

Jenny didn't answer and instead converted her free hand into a multiple-function tool. She looked at the device over before casually opening it with her tool arm.

"XJ-9, what are you doing?!" she heard her mother say.

"The colonel, and I have to admit, me, is curious about the entire message in this little gadget." Jenny answered, plugging in part of the devices internal circuitry to the monitor she had just deployed from her chest. "And since your discussion don't seem to be fixing this thing, I'm gonna play the message myself."

Jenny's chest monitor suddenly crackled to life. On the screen was a black-and-white image of the alien on the recording. For a moment, it seemed to do nothing. Then, the entire recording started to play.

"_This is Puule Gaarko, chief designer of the Baktiod Armor Workshop."_ The image began, "_This will be my final log entry. I have been stuck on this Force-forsaken planet for two standard months now, and I can't take it anymore. I just can't. I can't, I can't, I CAN'T!"_

Jenny and the other's weren't sure what to make of the alien's strange facial expressions, but the maddened tone of his voice was unmistakable. _"I don't know where that wormhole sent, but wherever we are we cannot contact the Confederacy or the Republic. The droids, including my precious ultra battle droids, have kept us alive by hunting something some sort of fat, beaked creature that walks around on this planet. I don't know what it is, but it's horrible. I'd rather eat Hutt dung than live of those foul creatures. Heh, I'd rather DIE that eat another batch of that foul meat or live on this cursed planet!"_

"Someone's a little testy." Someone muttered. The recording continued.

"_There's been talk amongst the crew on this ship. Talk against me!" _The alien said, eyes shifting as if looking to see if someone was watching. "_I know those ungrateful whelps plan to mutiny against me. They've always hated me and blamed me for the Captain's death. Yes, I know they do. They hate me. Hate me, hate me, hate me, hate me, HATE ME!!!"_

Many watching the recording flinched, even Jenny. By now there was no doubt on her mind, or everyone else's, that the alien was a few screws short of sane. _"Well, that's okay, because I hate them too! I've always hated them and the way they mocked me. Yes, I hate them, and this ship, and this planet. I hate having to live through this hell!_

_"Well, I'm going to fix al that. I've already taken care of the first part and soon I'll take care of everything." _The alien raised his hand and showed that it was holding a gun. "_I've executed all the mutineers, yes, I KILLED THEM ALL! In accordance with the laws of the Confederacy of Independence Systems, I have punished the mutineers. If the Confederacy ever finds us, know that I, Puule Gaarko, have kept all its laws."_

"Good Lord…" Dr. Wakeman whispered . Jenny merely nodded and gave an involuntary shudder. She remembered that the dead alien that she had seen earlier had a gun clutched in his other hand. And it was more than a bet the other dead bodies probably had lethal wounds caused by that very weapon. Jenny suddenly felt another wave of the same sickening feeling she had felt earlier.

_"I have put all the standard battle droids in storage and this ship on standby. I have set the entire ship to activate after this message finishes. Also, I have linked my ultra battle droids, my precious, precious, ultral battle droids, with the ships systems. So if ever someone finds us, they will be there to greet them." _The alien's voice turned bitter._ "If this is being played and you're from the Confederacy, congratulations, you've finally found us. If not…"_

The alien trailed off he. His image merely smiled an insanely crooked smile before he suddenly jabbed the gun to the side of his head and fired. Everyone jumped back as Jenny's monitor suddenly turned dark. Everyone, including Jenny, mrely stared at the blank screen, shocked at what they had just witnessed.

But before anyone could say anything, they all heard a humming sound that progressively louder. Jenny and the UNERU trooper's flinched, beam rifles and weapons at the ready. Suddenly, the humming stopped. For a moment everyone was frozen. But nothing seemed to happen.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Jenny started to say.

Then, everything turned on.

Author's Note: Whew, that was the longest chapter so far. I'll try to get the next one up soon. I'll have more fic writing time since it's already Christmas break here. W00t! Anyway, please review/critique. Oh, and Happy (insert holiday of choice)!


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